FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS - PAGE 5

LONDON: Official figures show Britain's unemployment rate rose 0.1 points to 7.9 per cent in October, suggesting a faltering jobs market as public sector job cuts loom. The Office for National Statistics said Wednesday that the number of unemployed people rose by 35,000 to 2.5 million. Figures were worst for young workers, with an unemployment rate among 16 to 24-year-olds of 19.8 per cent. There were 839,000 people unemployed for more than a year, the highest such figure since 1997.

LONDON: Gross domestic product in the United Kingdom rose 0.4 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the last quarter of 2007, the government said Friday. GDP is now 2.5 percent higher than in the first quarter of 2007, the Office for National Statistics said. The agency said production industries fell 0.2 percent, construction and services each rose 0.5 percent and household expenditure jumped 1.3 percent. Howard Archer, chief European economist at Global Insight, said the quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.4 percent was the lowest in three years.

LONDON: Britain's trade-in-goods deficit with the rest of the world stood at 7.4 billion pounds (9.9 billion euros, 14.5 billion dollars) in November, unchanged from October, official data showed on Thursday. The deficit with fellow EU countries in November was also unchanged from the previous month at 2.9 billion pounds. The deficit with non-EU countries stood at 4.4 billion pounds, virtually unchanged from October, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement.

LONDON: More than half the babies born to British mothers this year will be outside marriage for the first time since records began, while for Indians the corresponding figure will only be 20 per cent. According to the Office for National Statistics, when Indians, Pakistanis and other New Commonwealth parents are stripped out of the figures, births outside marriage in UK are projected to rise above 50 per cent for the first time in 2007. Figures showed that marriage among the indigenous population has slumped to its lowest level since records were first kept more than 150 years ago. The routine acceptance among the British-born population of illegitimacy has taken just four decades to come about.

LONDON: The number of immigrants staying in Britain is reported to have increased by twenty percent, with almost one-fourth of new babies being born to mothers from outside the country. The figures revealed by the Government's Office for National Statistics on Thursday, said net migration numbers rose to 196,000 in 2009, compared with 163,000 in the previous 12 months witnessing a rise of twenty percent. The figures announced by the Government's Office for National Statistics also came up with the fact that while four percent fewer people arrived in UK last year, the number of those leaving dropped by thirteen percent.

LONDON: The British economy expanded 0.7 per cent in the September quarter, a tad less than expected, due to sluggish activities in services and construction sectors. The UK, one of the largest European economies, was earlier projected to see a GDP growth of 0.8 per cent in the 2010 third quarter. "GDP growth has been revised down to 0.7 per cent in the latest quarter from 0.8 per cent previously published. GDP in the third quarter of 2010 is now 2.7 per cent higher than the third quarter of 2009," UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS)

LONDON: British manufacturing output unexpectedly fell on the month in April, suggesting Britain's frail economic recovery may be struggling to gain traction, official data showed on Friday. Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics showed producer input costs fell less than expected in May, while annual factory gate inflation was slightly lower than expected. The ONS said manufacturing output fell 0.4 per cent in April, after a rise of 2.2 in March, and against forecasts for a 0.5 per cent rise.

LONDON: Britain's economy decelerated in the first quarter, as expected, to record its weakest quarterly rate of growth in three years, official data showed on Friday. The Office for National Statistics said the economy grew 0.4 percent in the first three months of the year, easing from 0.6 percent in the final quarter of 2007. The annual growth rate slipped to 2.5 percent, slightly below the consensus forecast of 2.6 percent, from 2.8 percent previously. The figures are unlikely to alter expectations that the Bank of England will take a gradual approach to further interest rate cuts.

LONDON: Britain recorded economic growth of 3.1 per cent last year, picking up after a rate of 2.9 per cent in 2006, according to official data published on Wednesday. However, the country's economy experienced a slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2007 when it expanded by 0.6 per cent, the Office for National Statistics said in an initial estimate. That was the weakest rate since the third quarter of 2006 and compared with 0.7 per cent in the previous three month period.

LONDON: British 12-month inflation fell by less than expected to 4.1 percent in November from 4.5 percent in October as fuel prices sank, official data showed on Tuesday. "Consumer Prices Index (CPI) annual inflation - the government's target measure - was 4.1 per cent in November," the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement. Market expectations had been for a sharper drop to 3.9 percent. CPI annual inflation had surged to a 16-year high point of 5.2 percent in September.